The economy of Afghanistan has improved significantly since 2002 due to the infusion of multi-billion dollars in international assistance and investments, as well as remittances from Afghan expats.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the Afghan economy grew 20 % in the fiscal year ending in March 2004, after expanding 30 % in the previous 12 months.

The Afghan government is currently focused on securing continued assistance for rebuilding the economy, infrastructure, and military of the country.

The Afghan nation was able to build democratic structures over the years, and some progress was made in key areas such as governance, economy, health, education, transport, and agriculture.

For the last 30 years, the poor state of the Afghan transportation and communication networks have further fragmented and hampered the struggling economy.

The Afghan economy is moving further and further into the orbit of the Soviet bloc, which takes most of its exports in return for food grains and consumer goods.

A joint Soviet-Afghan statement says that the U. S. S. R. will ensure delivery of " equipment and materials " on account of the $ 100, 000, 000 credit granted in December 1955, and will also grant " other services connected with technical assistance in building certain installations " in many branches of Afghan economy.

In announcing his candidacy, Ghani emphasized the importance of: establishing a representative administration ; good governance ; building a dynamic economy and creating employment opportunities for the Afghan people.

When Communism ended and a free market economy emerged, organized criminal groups began to take over Russia's economy, with many ex-KGB soldiers and veterans of the Afghan war offering their skills to the crime bosses.

Many international aid organizations are contributing to the Afghan economy.

Internal objectives of the new Afghan government focused on strengthening the army and shoring up the economy, including transport and communications.

After the ousting of the Taliban from the town of Marja in the Southern Afghan province Helmand by Operation Moshtarak, American and NATO commanders were confronted with the dilemma of, on the one hand, the need to " win the hearts and minds " of the local population and, on the other, the need to eradicate poppy fields and destroy the opium economy that allegedly financed the Taliban insurgency.

However, now that the archeological archives and research results of the former USSR are open to scientists, it has become quite clear that the primal sighthound type evolved between the Kyrgyzstan, the lower Kazakhstan part of Altai and the Afghan plains, and that the earliest actual sighthound breeds were the plains Afghan hounds and the Kyrgyz Taigan.

The Afghan government has reported to the UPU several times about illegal stamps being issued and sold in 2003 and 2007.

Afghanistan has signed a copper deal with China ( Metallurgical Corp. of China Ltd .) in 2008, which is to a large scale project that involves the investment of $ 2. 8 billion dollars by China and an annual income of about $ 400 million dollars to the Afghan government.

Since 2002, the new Afghan government has engaged in cordial relations with both Iran and the United States, even as relations between Iran and the United States have grown strained due to American objections to Iran's nuclear program.

The Afghan National Police is in control of security while the International Security Assistance Force ( ISAF ) also has a heavy presence in and around the city.

Kabul Airport also has a military terminal and a section of airport is used by the United States armed forces and the Afghan National Air Force.

The Afghan government has become increasingly intolerant of foreign channels and the un-Islamic culture they bring, and has threatened to ban some.

The Afghan Ministry of Education has plans to build more schools in the coming years so that education is provided to all citizens of the country.

The diamond has belonged to various Hindu, Rajput, Mughal, Iranian, Afghan, Sikh and British rulers who fought bitterly over it and seized it as a spoil of war time and time again.

With as high as 7 million by some estimates, the city of Karachi in Pakistan has the largest concentration of urban Pakhtun population in the world, including 50, 000 registered Afghan refugees in the city.

Also, FinTRACA has access to all related Afghan government information and databases.

The Afghan Air Force also has small number of female pilots.

As of June 2011, the Afghan National Army has returned the Canadian-made C7 in favor of the American-made M16 rifle, reason being that parts between the two rifles, despite being similar, are not fully interchangeable.

The United States has also been largely responsible for the growth of the Afghan Air Force, as part of the Combined Air Power Transition Force, from four aircraft at the end of 2001 to about 100 as of 2011.

The emblem of Afghanistan, located in the center of the Afghan flag, has two national flags within it.

" Turkey has already done what it can do by boosting its contingent of soldiers there to 1, 750 from around 700 without being asked ", said Erdoğan, who stressed that Turkey would continue its training of Afghan security forces.

Since that time, Uzbekistan has participated in the CIS peacekeeping force in Tajikistan and in United Nations-organized groups to help resolve the Tajik and Afghan conflicts, both of which it sees as posing threats to its own stability.

In addition, IOM has often organized elections for refugees out of their home country, as was the case in the 2004 Afghan elections and the 2005 Iraqi elections.

Farid Zarif, an Afghan diplomat, has been the SRSG since 11 October 2011.

* The band The Afghan Whigs has a cameo in the movie.

In addition to the Afghan deposits, lapis has been extracted for many years in the Andes ( near Ovalle, Chile ), the Lake Baikal region of Russia ; Siberia ; Angola ; Argentina ; Burma ; Pakistan ; Canada ; India ; and in the USA in California and Colorado.

He noted that the Afghan militants are always welcome in the country, although foreign insurgents are not.

If I've seen tossed and nervous because of the Afghan war, Andropov, who understood ultimately their mistake, Ustinov was always calm and apparently convinced that he was right.

The inhabitants of this district have always been very independent and stubbornly resisted the Afghan and Sikh predecessors of the British.

Meos were always against invading Mughals and supported the native Afghan or Hindu kings.

In the 1978 to present Afghan Civil War period there have been several instances of horse mounted combat.

The débâcle of the Afghan civil war left a vacuum in the Hindu Kush area that concerned the British, who were well aware of the many times in history it had been employed as the invasion route to South Asia.

After 2000, the Afghan ministry of agriculture and livestock and USAID have been helping to regrow the number of livestocks throughout the country.

While Iran is helping to develop the Afghan Shia communities, the NATO officials have been accusing Iran of secretly arming and training the Taliban insurgents.

It was said that this was in preparation for a tour of duty in Afghanistan, where Canadian and British forces were participating in the NATO led Afghan War ; rumours that were confirmed in February the following year, when the British Ministry of Defence revealed that Harry had secretly been deployed as a Forward Air Controller to Helmand Province in the Asian country.

Afghan – Japanese relations have existed as far back as World War II, and have been mainly positive.

However, mosque bombings have not been exclusive to Iraq ; in June 2005, a suicide bomber killed at least 19 people at an Afghan Shia mosque near Jade Maivand.

Approximately 2, 000 such groups have been identified and most of them have surrendered to the Afghan government or joined the nation's military.

Officials in Mazar-e Sharif reported that between 20 to 30 Afghan tribal elders have been assassinated in Balkh Province in the last several years.

India's military presence and activities have been significant, beginning with India's extensive support to the anti-Taliban Afghan Northern Alliance ( ANA ).

Ahmad Shah Massoud, known as the " Lion of Panjshir ", had been named " the Afghan who won the Cold War " by the Wall Street Journal and had defeated the Soviet Red Army nine times in north-eastern Afghanistan.

UAE troops have been welcomed by the country as allied Muslim soldiers and the Emirati soldiers compliment the Afghan hospitality they encounter.

On 27 December Radio Kabul broadcast Karmal's pre-recorded speech, which stated " Today the torture machine of Amin has been smashed, his accomplices – the primitive executioners, usurpers and murderers of tens of thousand of our fellow countrymen – fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, children and old people ..." On 1 January Leonid Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and Alexei Kosygin, the Soviet Chairman of the Council of Ministers, congratulated Karmal on his " election " as leader, before any Afghan state or party organ had elected him to anything.

In the 1940s, the Government of South Australia operated a fleet of AEC 8x8 military trucks to transport freight and supplies into the Northern Territory, replacing the Afghan camel trains that had been trekking through the deserts since the late 19th century.

From the Oxus ( 1, 000 feet ) to Faizabad ( 4, 000 feet ) and Zebak ( 8, 500 feet ) the course of the Kokcha offers a high road across Badakhshan ; between Zebak and Ishkashim, at the Oxus bend, there is but an insignificant pass of 9, 500 feet ; and from Ishkashim by the Panj River, through the Pamirs, is the continuation of what must once have been a much-traversed trade route connecting Afghan Turkestan with Kashgar of China.

On April 27, 1978, the Afghan Army, which had been sympathetic to the PDPA cause, overthrew and executed Daoud along with members of his family.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR ) had been a major power broker and influential mentor in Afghan politics, ranging from civil-military infrastructure to Afghan society.

According to the Soviet Politburo they were complying with the 1978 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighborliness and Amin had been " executed by a tribunal for his crimes " by the Afghan Revolutionary Central Committee.

Neither had been favored in the ideology of the former Afghan state.

He is often seen wearing a Karakul hat, something that has been worn by many Afghan kings in the past.